The Earth Knows Not That He Unspun It, Nor The
by PumpkinPancakes
Summary: Story That He Unwrote The Words
1. Chapter 1

The Earth Knows Not That He Unspun It, Nor The Story That He Unwrote The Words

1. Hyper Despressology;

2. O;

3. Sigh Percussion;

4. I Can't Explain;

5. Wild Alchemists;

6. Will You, For A Moment, Consider What It Means To Unmeet A Bee, Or To Unseed A Tree?;

7. Triplets Of Opportunity;

8. O Part 2: Did You See A Burning Thread?


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing to stop existing was his very own shadow. It didn't disappear, nor was it removed, it just was gone from all elements of existing. It had never existed in the past, nor would it ever come back. Still, Ness knew it was gone, but how did he feel the loss, to miss a thing that was never there? How could he feel the loss, was it possible? When he woke up the next morning he felt for it on his bed, rubbed his heels and pulled his hands away from them as though stretching and removing a loose string. Like a phantom limb, his unshadow ached, it begged to down tint the ground it covered once again, or once at least.

It made him a double person, to know that the nonexistent existed, he left a shell of himself behind with each step to watch and wonder what would be, what would replace his nonshadow. His light stepping and lack of silhouette.

The next thing to go were the edges of his vision, and for the second time out of nothing came the memory of something. He would stare at black walls and roll his eyes around into his head, ask _was there blackness?_ sometimes in a fit whip his head around in acts of desperate looking. But, there was no nothing, and there was nothing, too, indiscernible nothing that was so intangible that Ness could not tell if it was really nothing or just the memory of the nothing something that never existed at all.

He spent the last summer in his bedroom, guarded. It was because they broke up. They had a special communication, a psychic mind talking open-node communication. It was not an exact science, not exactly determined by exact phrases, not even words or speech most of the time. They would compare it to a game of Marco Polo or Hide and Seek, but with both players blindfolded and looking for each other while evading crass thoughts. It was part of the reason they couldn't be with each other anymore. It was one thing to know what what you were saying was hurting their feelings, but to feel the mental breakdown cut through the air and overwhelm you, _god, Ness, I can't stand this right now, please, can't you hold this in?_

The relaying of ever changing and reacting emotion: the rush of excitement for their weekends together, her ever present anxiety concerning their relationship, his anger for it, and shame resulting in both of them. Eventually he learned how to stop transmitting, and every time she suspected it, he would have to muffle the outcry of disappointment he felt for himself. Eventually the ocean of noise between them turned into a small trickle, a fake but reassuring _it's okay, we're okay _repeated until it too lost all meaning. The last night they were together, after finals night, on Thursday night for the first time all semester, he told her that he didn't love her anymore.

Without thinking, a desperate maneuver to escape pain.

She only listened, and when nothing happened in his mind as he stood up, started to walk away, all she could think was: _I guess it must be true. _

Over the next week the rate of false memory occurrences and progressive deterioration of the world increased dramatically. What was getting gone: _dirt getting under fingernails, the smell of rain, the sound dead teevee channels make, stomach aches, the growth of hair on dogs_. Ness began to leave his home for days at a time, for the first time in years. He wandered, following the trails of the things lost to the world. In a daze he covered all of Onett, found himself at the town's hidden landmark for the second time in his life, a huge footprint hidden by a series of caves, how had he arrived here, was the memory of walking lost on the world too?

_A minute of sunset, the rattling of too-loud bass, shooting stars, the desire to climb trees._

He avoided Twoson religiously, so as not to see her, but after a day's walk east he was in Threed again. He would stand in the graveyard and just absorb the loss around him, consciously aware of it now. He had taken the role of investigator upon himself, half to distract him from the thought of her, half in wild wonder, wildly bemused and in shock. He never heard her thoughts anymore.

_Hey...?_

_The cycle of nature? The shifting of seismic plates? Summer, Winter and Spring?_


	3. Chapter 3

The first reply came a day later, he was home laying on his bed, watching the slow decay of his own fingerprints, she like the singing pitch of a ringing bell, _Ness, huh? Hi there, hello._

He sat up quickly and searched the room; looked out his window. Searched the area mentally for any disturbances, nothing. _Paula?_

Her perverse laughter filled him, _Is that who you were calling to? Paula?_

_Who are you?_

_Oh-feel-e-uh, you don't know me Nessy, we just met, right now, _and she revealed her smile to him, transmitted image, her thin lips not quite covering her crooked teeth, pale and translucent, pale skin too.

He sat silently, bringing up his legs to his chest, considering for a moment the possibility of cutting himself off from communication once again, but she read him, _I know why everything is ending, do you want to know?_

She was biting her lower lips, grinning through it, he couldn't read her intentions. Was he so out of practice or had it stopped being? _Yes. I want to know._

_He he he he, it's cute that you don't know-oh, little Ness. To-morrow, you will come watch the world fall apart with me, Fourside Natural History Museum. Do you know about Bones' bones? Ah-ha-ha-ha, Ness, I'll see you then._

He curled up his hands and she stopped smiling, mouthed _by for now_ and kissed the air, succeeded from his mind.

He ran through Twoson to the bus stop, closed his eyes as he went by Paula's house and didn't open them until he was on the bus and out of any possible sight. His hands had smoothed over in the night, even his life line erased, and when clenched the skin just shifted together, no lines at all. He was feeling hazed, nervous, unable to divine trouble ahead or behind. He mouthed her name over and over, trying to understand it, _Ophelia, Ophelia._

Maybe heard, _are you thinking about me, Nessy?_

Or maybe nothing.

The window opened up into the earthy air of Threed, sweet sickly leaves on the ground, ground up on the street and tiny molecules floating in the air. The fire of trees preparing to sleep into the piecing white of the sun on sand that surrounds Fourside. He didn't see any other cars on the road, all the faces he past seemed in still motion, lifeless, the sky darkened and dulled. He pushed his cheek up against the small crack in the open window.

He could hear her heartbeat in the air.

He sat down on an old wooden bench just inside the park, held his hands close to his body and looked around cautiously, he could feel the clammy air of the museum on his skin, though removed from it, the weight of a small bag on his shoulder, her sense of self pleasure. She was exposing her senses to him, and at the same time he was suppressing his, a desperate clawing at her psyche, she was tickled by his blunt attack. _Enough enough, Nessy, stop playing around, I'll be waiting by the entrance for you._

He turned at faced the long street curling out from under his feet, the urge to run and explode into the air, but she had her hands weighing on his shoulders, _No no no, don't you want to know? _and led him by the arm towards to museum, tugging as he lagged behind like a child.

She hung limp off her shoulders, skinny are exhausted, painted eyes barely open and swollen, black. Not filling her clothes at all, ripped white shirt that read, "Oh that I could die" and faded jeans, bracelets like a sepia tone rainbow, her smile seemed to him much more distorted and weak in person, so he stared at the floor instead. From the corner of his eye she wavered, pulled her thin blond hair to her ears and nearly limped as she began to walk towards him.

Her sense of a fractured body was all that was left of her overbearing projection, he winced.


End file.
